In current electrocardiograph (ECG) systems, there exists solutions whereby a set of ECG leads are configured for collecting ECG data from a patient and delivering that signal from the collected ECG data to a monitor or computing device. In current systems, the computing device must have software pre-installed for receiving, compiling and providing a user interface for use with the ECG system.
Further, current monitoring systems may also require the user to install special device drivers or other residual changes to the host computing device in order to utilize the ECG system. These requirements make it difficult to implement a fully portable ECG system, whereby a user such as a physician or other clinical worker may use the ECG leads with any available computing device. Obviously, the current ECG systems make it very difficult to have a true portable ECG system as computing devices must be equipped with special software and/or devices, but the current systems also make portable ECG collection and analysis expensive by requiring multiple licenses and/or installation on a number of computing devices in a healthcare environment.
An embodiment of an ECG system 10 of the prior art is illustrated in FIG. 1. This system 10 includes an acquisition device 20, having a USB communication control module 30, an ECG analog to digital converter 35 and a patient isolation module 40. This prior art solution also includes a patient connector 70 (ECG leads), connecting the acquisition device 20 to the patient 80. The acquisition device 20 further includes a USB connector 60 for coupling to a monitoring device 50. Again, it should be noted that this acquisition device includes only a patient isolation module 40, which is required in electronic devices that are attached to patients, a USB communication control 30 that acts as an interface between the acquisition device 20 and the monitoring device 50, and the converter 35 that prepares the acquired signal for the software application resident on the monitoring device 50. In essence, software on the monitoring device 50, through the USB connector 60, controls the entire operation of the acquisition system 10. The acquisition device 20 in this case is not entirely a portable acquisition device or complete ECG system at all, but rather a mere middleman or transfer device between the monitoring device 50, and the patient connector 70. As stated previously, this system 10 is severely limited in that it can only operate with monitoring devices 50 that have the appropriate resident software or drivers. Further, such systems do not include an acquisition device 20 equipped with power management and brokering for use with host devices with limited capabilities for providing start-up power.